NOTE TO THE SECRETARY

Written:Written in August, prior to 21, 1920Published:First published in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      page423a.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TellChicherin,

1)Inmy opinion, Kamenev is right: we must send our
replythrough him(and in the negative).

2)Negotiationswith Vanderlip to be begunthrough
Krasin, exacttermsto be ascertained without summoning
Vanderlip
here.[1]

[1]Ina telegram to People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Chicherin on July 30, 1920, M. M. Litvinov, plenipotentiary abroad
of the R.S.F.S.R. Council of People’s Commissars, reported the
arrival in Copenhagen of the American industrialist Vanderlip,
who wanted to obtain a concession to exploit oil, coal, and the
fisheries of Primorye Region and Kamchatka.

Inthe Central Party Archives of the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism of the C.C., C.P.S.U., there is a note written by
Lenin on Chicherin’s letter dated August 21, 1920, in which
Lenin agrees to Vanderlip visiting Moscow.

Vanderliparrived in Moscow on September 17, 1920, to
negotiate an agreement for the concessions. On the same day
Chicherin wrote to Lenin suggesting that negotiations with Vanderlip
be started at once and setting out his views on the subject. Lenin
wrote on this letter: “Comrade Chicherin, I am wholly infavour
ofnegotiations. Hasten them. Think over what more should be
done for directives to Krasnoshchokov.” =

(Collected Works, Fifth
Ed., Vol. 51, p. 448.)

Aninter-departmental commission of representatives of the
Supreme Economic Council, the People’s Commissariat for
Foreign Affairs and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade,
was set up to conduct the negotiations. In agreeing to offer a
concession to Vanderlip’s syndicate, the Soviet Government
aimed not only at establishing mutually profitable co-operation
with American business circles, but also at normalising relations
between Soviet Russia and the U.S.A. In a letter to the
Vanderlip syndicate on November 1, 1920, Chicherin pointed out: “
Independently of the signing of a concession agreement, the
Government of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
assumes that the agreement will come into force only on the
resumption of normal de facto relations between the Government of
Russia and the Government of the U.S.A., and on condition that
such relations will be established before July 1, 1921.” =

However, this condition was not fulfilled, hence the concession
agreement with Vanderlip was not finalised and did not come into
effect.